What to do with keyword specific domains

[gregalam]

I have a few domain names with the keywords I'm trying to target for my website. My website currently has been in operations for a couple years, and while not hugely authoritative, has built some value.

Now, are these domain names with keywords any use to me? Is there any point to forward them to my site? Do I try to build up a page (or a few of content) and then have a link to my main site?

Any insight would be mucho appreciated!

Thanks!

[martyc]

Hi Greg, from my own experience I would follow Robert's advice and build the micro-sites.  But only 301 redirect them once they are ranking well independently.  To get them to rank you will need to publish some relevant content (not spam) and build up some quality backlinks to each.

I would advise against simply forwarding them, type in traffic will probably be minimal.

[gregalam]

Hmmm.... Both responses were what I was thinking. It may be useful in certain circumstances, not in others. With the size of my site and the competitiveness of the words, I think I'll continue to simply forward them to my main site and not create micro-sites. I don't have enough content to that.

Thanks for the help Marie and Robert!

[RobertFisher]

I think this is a good question Greg and it is likely asked by some of us every day. Given that the keyword specific domain seems to be losing some of its value in SEO, I would say its likely now or never. http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

From this the best and brightest seem to think the value of exact match domains will diminish and it would stand to reason that it would. But probably not to zero in the next year or two in my opinion.

So, if your site is a large site with many Keywords, my suggestion would be to set up micro sites utilizing the exact match domains and link to your main site (remember that you need a different IP or C Block). Or link from the larger site to the exact match and build its value quicker while potentially being able to gain more ranking real estate.

The other thought for a more narrow site would be to do a 301 redirect to the new domain from the old. We do this often with professional practice clients and over about 90 days we do see their domain authority rise. (Remember that the 301 is url t url and has to be placed in the .htaccess file to be effective).

We did this recently with an attorney where we utilized an exact match phrase around bankruptcy and his location with hyphens and redirected his www.thebillyboblawfirm.com to that. I was surprised that we were able to transfer his original DA and PA so easily and now we are growing both. Obviously, it is harder to tell how much the exact match has to do with that versus the fact that we are engaged and whomever he used previously was not.

My opinion is that it does have significant impact as we are now ranking on terms where we were no before. While I am unwilling to share the site particulars en masse, if you contact me via private mail, I will share the data with a simple promise of confidentiality.

Hope this helps,

[MarieHaynes]

In my opinion the only way these domains will be useful is for type in traffic.  I'd likely 301 them all to my main site.

With that being said, if one of the domain names was a really great single keyword domain then it may be worth considering using one of them as your main domain.

Building satellite sites on these domains will not be of any help.  The links would only be of value if there were links pointing to the sites themselves and then they passed on the juice to your site.  But if the content on the satellite sites is good enough to attract links then it's best to put it on your main site.